Food Junkies Podcast

A recovering food addict, Debbie Danowski, Ph.D. has maintained a weight loss greater than the amount she now weighs for more than 12 years. As an alumnus of a food addiction treatment center, Dr. Danowski has consistently used the recovery program outlined in her first book, Why Can't I Stop Eating? to enjoy a 166-pound weight loss without the dangerous health risks. Professionally, Dr. Danowski has written more than 100 articles for national and local publications, including First For Women, Woman's Day, and Seventeen Magazine. She has also spoken at countless meetings, seminars, and conferences about food addiction, including Food Addiction 2000, the first national conference held on the disease. Additionally, Dr. Danowski was employed by the food addiction unit of a national treatment center, to educate mental health professionals about food addiction recovery. Currently, Dr. Danowski is an assistant professor of English at Sacred Heart University in Fairfield, Connecticut, and a member of the University's Eating Disorders Prevention Team. Dr. Danowski earned her Ph.D. at Capella University in Minneapolis, Minnesota where she studied food representation in film. Dr. Danowski also has a Master's Degree in Public Communications with an emphasis in television, radio, and film from Syracuse University. In this episode: The personal Inpatient Treatment Experience Food Addiction Recovery as a Vegan 12 Step experience Recovery today vs early days Her books Kids and Sugar Resistance to Food Addiction Working with the Food Addiction Institute and SHiFT What’s next? Signature Question   Dr. Danowski’s Books: The Emotional Eater’s Book of Inspiration https://www.amazon.com/Emotional-Eaters-Book-Inspiration/dp/1569242569/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2IGGN1TSTOA2G&keywords=the+emotional+eaters+book+of+inspiration&qid=1658687497&sprefix=the+emotional+eaters+book+o%2Caps%2C177&sr=8-1   Why Can’t I stop Eating? https://www.amazon.com/Why-Cant-Stop-Eating-Understanding/dp/1568383657/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1SWURV8ICUCP6&keywords=why+can%27t+i+stop+eating&qid=1658687469&sprefix=Why+Can%27t+I+Stop+%2Caps%2C157&sr=8-1   Overeaters Journal https://www.hazelden.org/store/item/2216?Overeaters-Journal   Why Can’t My Child Stop Eating? https://www.amazon.com/Why-Cant-Child-Stop-Eating/dp/1937612279/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2PTKWEWIJ1AVB&keywords=Why+Can%27t+My+Child+Stop+Eating&qid=1658687431&s=books&sprefix=why+can%27t+my+child+stop+eatin%2Cstripbooks%2C165&sr=1-1   Locked Up For Eating Too Much https://www.amazon.com/Locked-Up-Eating-Too-Much/dp/1568387938/ref=sr_1_2?qid=1658687406&refinements=p_27%3ADebbie+Danowski++Ph.D.&s=books&sr=1-2 The content of our show is educational only. It does not supplement or supersede the professional relationship and direction of your healthcare provider. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified mental health providers with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition, substance use disorder, or mental health concern.

David Courtwright specializes in drug history. He also writes about violence, political and policy history, aviation, and frontier environments. He has taught medical, U.S., and world history at the University of North Florida, where he is presidential professor emeritus in the Department of History. Courtwright has published influential books on drug use and drug policy, both in American and world history; the social problems of frontier environments on the land and in the air; and the culture war that roiled American politics during and after the 1960s. Whether it is about drugs, violence, aerospace, or cultural politics, his research is concerned with power, policy, and social structure. His ambition is to identify what drives fundamental changes in modern social and political history. Courtwright's teaching and research have been recognized by the John A. Delaney Presidential Professorship, the UNF Distinguished Professor Award, five teaching awards, the College on Problems of Drug Dependence Media Award, and fellowships from the American Historical Association, NASA, the American Council of Learned Societies, and the National Endowment for the Humanities, including a 2016-2017 NEH Public Scholar Award. In this episode: Personal – how did Dr. Courtwright get into the history of addiction Limbic Capitalism and pleasure circuitry What is the food industry? Digital Addiction Activism & Awareness of Addiction Sugar taxes and public policy Dr. Courtwright’s latest book: The Age of Addiction – How Bad Habits Became Big Business Consumerist Dystopia Harm Reduction Solutions – graffiti campaigns, public health notices, clever propaganda, class action suits What’s next? Signature Question Find Dr. Courtwright: Website: https://davidcourtwright.domains.unf.edu/   Books                The Age of Addiction https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674737372                No Right Turn https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?recid=30104                Sky As Frontier https://www.tamupress.com/search-results/?keyword=Sky-as-Frontier                Forces of Habit https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674010031                Dark Paradise https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674005853                Violent Land https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674278714                Addicts Who Survived https://www.amazon.com/Addicts-Who-Survived-History-Narcotic/dp/1572339373/ref=sr_1_7?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1378394255&sr=1-7   The content of our show is educational only. It does not supplement or supersede the professional relationship and direction of your healthcare provider. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified mental health providers with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition, substance use disorder, or mental health concern.

Terri Cole is a licensed psychotherapist, relationship expert, an author, and a total Boundary Boss. She's taught thousands of women just like you to talk true, be seen, and finally live FREE as the most authentic, most empowered version of themselves. Terri is a global leading expert in personal empowerment. For two decades, she has worked with some of the world’s most well-known personalities, from international pop stars to Fortune 500 CEOs. She has a gift for making complex psychological concepts accessible and then actionable.  All of the practices, techniques and concepts she shares are informed by the Five Pillars of Self Mastery, a transformational system based on her personal and professional experience as a licensed clinical therapist for more than 2 decades. She believes we are WAY overdue for a healthy boundary REVOLUTION. Today Terri talks to use about: What boundaries are How critical it is to have good boundaries Why is it so hard to set boundaries How NOT setting boundaries serves us Some telltale signs that you have problems with boundaries How do we set them kindly and clearly without sounding mean What is secondary gain? Can it help explain how it keeps us stuck in our slips, binges and a return to use?    Then we unpack perfectionism and codepepndency with a new version of codepepndecy that will make your head spin. High-functioning codependency!  FOR MORE FROM TERRI COLE Grab a copy of Boundary Boss – The Essential Guide to Talk True, Be Seen and (Finally) Live Free. https://www.amazon.ca/Boundary-Boss-Essential-Guide-Finally/dp/1683647688?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1626374348&sr=8-1&linkCode=sl1&tag=jamiescrimgeo-20&linkId=61b840e1b215a5797523d998df1cd26a&language=en_CA&ref_=as_li_ss_tl Get her free guide: Codependency & Boundaries https://boundaryboss.me/codependency/ Website: https://www.terricole.com Instagram: @terricole Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TerriColeLCSW   The content of our show is educational only. It does not supplement or supersede the professional relationship and direction of your healthcare provider. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified mental health providers with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition, substance use disorder, or mental health concern.  

Society has come up with every diet imaginable in our journey toward living healthy, but rates of obesity continue to rise. Food journalist Mark Schatzker argues that tampering with the food we eat has harmed our ability to properly feed ourselves. MARK SCHATZKER is the author of The End of Craving, The Dorito Effect and Steak. He is a writer in residence at the Modern Diet and Physiology Research Center, which is affiliated with Yale University. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Best American Travel Writing and Annual Review of Psychology. He lives in Toronto. LINKS Check out Mark Schatzker on Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn. See his website https://www.markschatzker.com for links to purchase his books. See some scientific studies mentioned in the interview and Schatzker’s book:  • This 2020 in Cell Metabolism shows how artificial sweeteners can reduce insulin sensitivity and blunt brain response to sucrose https://www.cell.com/cell-metabolism/fulltext/S1550-4131(20)30057-7 • This 2017 study in Current Biology suggests how artificial sweeteners disrupt normal physiological responses to carbohydrate ingestion https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(17)30876-X?_returnURL=https%3A%2F%2Flinkinghub.elsevier.com%2Fretrieve%2Fpii%2FS096098221730876X%3Fshowall%3Dtrue Learn more about Canada’s permitted food additives and how they are regulated here.  https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/services/food-nutrition/food-safety/food-additives.html INSIGHTS 1. The stigma against people with obesity is that they are overindulgent or weak. “This is absolutely wrong,” says Schatzker. Instead, the brains of obese people respond to food differently. For example, at the sight of food, research has shown that obese people experience a spike in dopamine levels in their brains’ reward centres. “The difference,” says Schatzker, “is one of craving.” 2. “We always thought that sweetness is this indulgent, enjoyable sensation,” says Schatzker. “It’s actually like an instruction manual… for how much energy we’re getting.” When our food contains additives like artificial sweeteners or fat replacers, it tastes like it should contain more sugar or fat than it actually does. “When there's this mismatch… the brain doesn't know what to do,” Schatzker says. “It kind of throws up its hands.” The uncertainty of how much energy we’re getting leads the body to want to eat more, just to cover its bases. Which explains the obesity crisis in North America, where so much of the diet is processed (a.k.a. mismatched) food.  3. “We tend to think that our appetite is primitive and unhinged, and that there’s something wrong with food,” says Schatzker. As a result, we’ve been adding things to our food to change its taste, texture, shelf-life or caloric content, and these additives have been directly altering our brains and the amount of food that we’re driven to eat. To make matters worse, these additives are difficult to spot on ingredient labels. They’re often called things that sound healthy and natural, like citrus fibre or milk protein (both fat replacers). 4. “If delicious food is a guilty pleasure, you would expect that Italians would be the heaviest people in the world,” says Schatzker. In fact Italy has one of the world’s lowest obesity rates, and he credits that to Italy’s cultural attitude toward mealtime, home cooking and savouring. “Eating is meant to be deeply pleasurable, so don’t be afraid to enjoy real food. That’s the way it’s meant to be eaten,” he says. The content of our show is educational only. It does not supplement or supersede the professional relationship and direction of your healthcare provider. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified mental health providers with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition, substance use disorder, or mental health concern.  

In today's episode Dr. Vera Tarman and Clarissa Kennedy interview Susan Peirce Thompson to talk about her latest book, REZOOM: The Powerful Reframe to End the Crash-and-Burn Cycle of Food Addiction. Susan Peirce Thompson, Ph.D. is an Adjunct Associate Professor of Brain and Cognitive Sciences at the University of Rochester and an expert in the psychology of eating. She is President of the Institute for Sustainable Weight Loss and the founder of the worldwide Bright Line Eating movement. Her first two books, including “Bright Line Eating: The Science of Living Happy, Thin, and Free,” became New York Times bestsellers and instant Hay House favorites. Her work weaves the neuroscience of food addiction with powerful insights from Positive Psychology, IFS, and 12-Step Recovery to outline a roadmap for achieving true integrity and self-authorship around food. The Bright Line Eating mission is to help one million people around the globe discover lasting food freedom and have their “Bright Transformations” by 2025. Website: https://susanpeircethompson.com/   The content of our show is educational only. It does not supplement or supersede the professional relationship and direction of your healthcare provider. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified mental health providers with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition, substance use disorder, or mental health concern.

After earning a BS in biochemistry at the University of Virginia, Dr. Guyenet completed a Ph.D. in neuroscience at the University of Washington, then went on to study the neuroscience of obesity and eating behavior as a postdoctoral fellow.  He has spent a total of 12 years in the neuroscience research world studying neurodegenerative disease and the neuroscience of body fatness.  His publications in scientific journals have been cited more than 3,600 times by my peers. Today, Dr. Guyenet continues his mission to advance science and public health as a researcher, science consultant, and science communicator.  His book, The Hungry Brain, was released in February of 2017 and was named one of the best books of the year by Publishers Weekly and called “essential” by the New York Times Book Review.  Dr. Guyenet is a Senior Researcher at GiveWell and a scientific reviewer for the Examine.com Research Digest.  Dr. Guyenet is the founder and director of Red Pen Reviews, which publishes the most informative, consistent, and unbiased popular health and nutrition book reviews available.  He is the primary designer of an innovative course-based body weight management program called the Ideal Weight Program, which is part of the HumanOS platform.  Dr. Guyenet periodically contributes to the scientific literature and is a review editor at Frontiers in Nutrition. Today Clarissa and I spoke with Dr. Guyenet about: Dr. Guyenet’s thoughts on food addiction Food Selection Motivational States Craving as a whole and Craving specific foods Genetic role Medications Exercise Body "set point" And more! Find Dr. Guyenet: Website Book: The Hungry Brain  Twitter The content of our show is educational only. It does not supplement or supersede the professional relationship and direction of your healthcare provider. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified mental health providers with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition, substance use disorder, or mental health concern.

Dr. Stephan Guyenet received his doctorate in neuroscience and has developed expertise in the study of obesity and eating behavior. He is the author of the 2017 best-selling book:  The Hungry Brain: Outsmarting the Instincts That make us Overeat. He has also designed a course-based body weight management program called the Ideal Weight Program.   One interesting aspect for us at Food Junkies is how Dr. Guyenet upholds the belief that it IS calories that matter the most when it comes to obesity (and NOT sugar specifically).  He does however add that it IS the addiction to trigger foods, such as sugar that leads to overeating the calories that then lead to obesity.   In this episode: Dr. Guyenet's personal and professional journey The Obesity Model Processed Foods and Hyper-Palatability Food/Sugar Addiction Volume eating Weight loss/diets Signature question   Find Dr. Guyenet: Website: https://www.stephanguyenet.com/ Book: The Hungry Brain Twitter The content of our show is educational only. It does not supplement or supersede the professional relationship and direction of your healthcare provider. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified mental health providers with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition, substance use disorder, or mental health concern.

Dr. Ann Saffi Biasetti has been a practicing Psychotherapist for over 30 years. She holds a Ph.D. in Psychology with a Transpersonal concentration and is licensed as a Clinical Social Worker. She is a Certified Eating Disorder Specialist (CEDS) through IAEDP, a trained Mindful Self-Compassion and Mindfulness teacher, a trained Polyvagal Theory therapist, as well as a Certified MABT practitioner, and Certified Yoga therapist. Dr. Ann Saffi Biasetti’s doctoral research explored the role of self-compassion in eating disorder recovery. Her first book, Befriending Your Body: A Self-Compassionate Approach to Freeing Yourself from Disordered Eating, was released through Shambhala Publications in August 2018 and her second publication, the Awakening Self-Compassion Card Deck was released through Shambhala Publications in December 2021. Ann’s approach is not just about talking about your life but rather, helping you to step back into it in an embodied way to re-discover something new and different and to help empower you toward action and lasting growth and change. IN THE EPISODE: Personal and professional journey How she works with clients Befriending Your Body Program Body Image Abstaining and Self-Compassion Recovery, Healing, and Relapse Perfectionism Psychospiritual growth! What is it? Do we need it? How do we get it? Resistance Signature Question FOLLOW ANN: Website: https://www.anembodiedlife.com/ Book: Befriending Your Body https://www.anembodiedlife.com/befriending-your-body/the-book/ Self-Compassion Card Deck https://www.anembodiedlife.com/befriending-your-body/awakening-self-compassion-card-deck/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AnEmbodiedLife Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/anembodiedlife/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/AnEmbodiedLife The content of our show is educational only. It does not supplement or supersede the professional relationship and direction of your healthcare provider. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified mental health providers with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition, substance use disorder, or mental health concern.

Martha Peirce, MSEd., RP* -Educator, Trainer, Consultant -International Trauma Specialist (in the process) Martha spent the first fifteen years of her career teaching foods, nutrition, and quantity food service courses at the high school and college levels in Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Ontario, Canada. She began her own recovery from an eating disorder, food addiction, and alcoholism over thirty-five years ago. In time, after much healing and further professional development, she started a new career. For over 30 years she has worked as a counselor and psychotherapist in private practice specializing in the treatment of addictions (especially food addiction), eating disorders, trauma, and codependency. Long before there was science to back up the concept of food addiction, Martha noticed in her own healing journey and that of many of her clients, sensitivity to healthy foods and an individual’s inability to eat certain healthy foods within moderation. This seemed comparable to the alcoholic’s craving for alcohol and the “phenomenon of craving” hence the concept of “food addiction.” Her work was validated by that of Kay Sheppard’s initial writing: Food Addiction: The Body Knows (www.kaysheppard.com). Martha had the opportunity to co-facilitate Recovery from Food Addiction workshops with Kay Sheppard early in her career. She receives ongoing supervision and training from Dr. Kate Hudgins, an internationally acclaimed expert in the area of treating trauma, addiction, and eating disorders. In recent years she has also had the opportunity to co-facilitate workshops with Dr. Kate Hudgins (www.therapeuticspiralmodel.com). From 2015 to 2019, Martha was honored to be a Senior Clinician and part of the Team that developed the 28-day in-patient and 5-day out-patient programs for the treatment of Food Addiction at Renascent (www.renascent.ca). It was discovered that the client was best served via the Team approach which included the Head Cook, Cooks, and the Dietician (Mary Bamford, RD) collaborating with Food Addiction Counsellors, and Martha, the Senior Clinician because of the complex nature of food addiction pathology and recovery process. During her affiliation with Renascent, she has been made aware of research that is now validating her grassroots personal and professional experience with food addiction treatment and recovery. Martha maintains her passion for her vocation and continues to maintain a full and rich private practice! *Registered Psychotherapist with the College of Registered Psychotherapists of Ontario In this Episode: Martha’s personal story and AHA moment Her thoughts on specific food plans 12 Steps Codependency Residential Treatment Many take-aways The content of our show is educational only. It does not supplement or supersede the professional relationship and direction of your healthcare provider. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified mental health providers with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition, substance use disorder, or mental health concern.

Michelle Hurn RD LD, Ultra Runner, Author of The Dietitian’s Dilemma Michelle is a registered and licensed dietitian with eleven years of experience as a clinical, acute care dietitian, lead dietitian in psychiatric care, and outpatient dietitian. While practicing inpatient and outpatient care in the hospital setting, Michelle discovered a disheartening connecting between the high carbohydrate, low fat, “sugar in moderation,” nutrition guidelines she was required to teach, and the rapidly declining health of her patients. She believes in Food Addiciton which makes her an outlier in her field.  Michelle was diagnosed with anorexia at a young age and was treated with what she shares was an IV medical refeeding, basically straight liquid sugar via a tube through her nose down into her stomach. She was told and believed that she would have to live the rest of her life suffering with this complicated relationship with food. Later in her life she became a an endurance. In 2019, Michelle decided to follow a LCHF, high animal protein diet to see if it would alleviate severe muscle pain she was experiencing. Not only was her muscle pain gone in a matter of weeks, her decades of anxiety began to fade. After struggling for years with anorexia, she discovered that eating this way also helped alleviate some of her eating disorder symptoms as well.  As a dietician, she found herself in the ‘dietician’s dilemma’:  what to do with her new knowledge of recovery in the face of information she was still expected to teach her clients - ie  to eat  addictive refined carbs in moderation? So Michelle wrote the book: “The Dietitian’s Dilemma,” detailing how the current nutrition guidelines came into existence and advocating a low carbohydrate, animal-based way of eating as an option for individuals struggling with diabetes, mental disorders, eating disorders, sarcopenia, and heart disease. Today she shares her experience working in the field and trying to shake things up at low carb events. You can buy Michelle’s book, listen to her latest podcast, and follow Michelle on social media by clicking the following link: https://linktr.ee/Runeatmeatrepeat